Escape from Durnholde Keep
Prerequisite Quest In order to be able to access this first instance in the Caverns of Time, the player must be level 66 and complete the quest from Steward of Time, and then the other quest from Andormu. is a quest where you should follow a time steward around the cave for about 3 minutes and listen to his story. It might be hard to do depending on alliance/horde activity in the cave. It is time-consuming, however, so ensure that you do it before the rest of your party arrives, so as not to make them wait! Important information During the escort, when you are in the Inn, if you wait too long before talking to Thrall or Taretha, she disappears and you have to restart the quest from the beginning. Bosses Lieutenant Drake - Humanoid Elite level 68 - (Optional - see "Stealth Tactics" below)Strategy Captain Skarloc - Humanoid Elite level 68 - Strategy the Epoch Hunter - Dragonkin Elite level 68 - Strategy Escape from Durnholde Keep The first instance in the Caverns of Time, this zone sends players back seven years in time to the Hillsbrad Foothills to preserve the flow of time. In the original timeline, Taretha Foxton set off a diversion that allowed the young Thrall to escape Durnholde and start his journey. Meddling agents of the mysterious Infinite Dragonflight, however, have kidnapped Taretha. Since she is unable to create a diversion, the Bronze Dragonflight asks players to do it themselves. Players are asked to set incendiary devices in the various buildings of the Durnholde Internment Camp. The Durnholde Internment Camp has five buildings. Each building has 4 guards. When pulling this area, be sure to keep an eye out for patrols. (Note - there is an alternate strategy, see "Stealth Tactics" below) Once all the explosives are set, players can choose to fight Lieutenant Drake. To continue, the party must then free Thrall from his cell in the basement of the keep and escort him out, telling the Orc that they are friends of Taretha who have come in her stead. As Thrall runs very quickly and does not rest after battles, this may be difficult on some parties. If you find yourself running dry on mana, just stop and rest after a fight and let Thrall go on his own for a bit--he can take care of himself for a little while. Healers will need to make sure that the young Warchief-to-be is kept alive, though. If you want to make your life a little easier, go ahead and clear any mobs in Durnholde Keep and in Tarren Mill before speaking to Thrall so that you will not have to deal with them later as adds or while Thrall is running around with no regard to mana or health. Important note: Your party can only wipe three times during the escort of Thrall. After the third wipe, Erozion will no longer appear and reset the encounter. You will need to reset and restart the instance. After clearing the walls of Durnholde, Thrall and the party will encounter Captain Skarloc and two bodyguards. Once Skarloc is killed, Thrall will commandeer his mount and lead the party to where he believes Taretha is being held--Tarren Mill. You will fight several packs of Tarren Mill guards before entering the Inn, where Taretha is held captive by the magic of the Infinite Dragonflight. Before talking to either Thrall or Taretha, be very sure to buff up completely and get to full mana--talking to them starts the final boss event. Warning, waiting too long results in Taretha despawning and the quest breaking. Once you talk to either one of the two, the Epoch Hunter--a Drake of the Infinite Dragonflight himself--will announce his presence and tell Thrall that Taretha's life hangs in the balance. Naturally, Thrall asks if the party will accompany him in this last battle, though you really don't have a choice. The Epoch Hunter will fly overhead doing nothing for the first phase of this event. He will spawn three waves of Infinite Dragonkin, which are somewhat spell-resistant and have various abilities like Shadowbolt. Since they are Dragonkin, Druid's Hibernate spell is very helpful here. The waves are on a timer, so you must kill them fast. Keep close to the inn, for they have a tendency to come from the other side and aggro the first person they see--Thrall can survive their assault longer than you can, of course. The best thing during this phase is to let Thrall tank all the others and DPS the Defilers down. Then work on the rest. Once all three waves are down, the Epoch Hunter himself will land. He, like most Dragonkin, has a frontal breath attack (arcane damage) that reduces movement speed and attack speed significantly, so keep him faced away from the raid. This phase is significantly easier than the first one. Once you've killed the Epoch Hunter, the agent of the Bronze Dragonflight who sent you will remove the memory of your interference from Thrall and Taretha. Though Taretha's sad fate is unavoidable, Thrall goes off to meet his destiny--and the flow of time is preserved. Completing this quest will allow the player to enter the second instance in the Caverns of Time, which is set prior to the events of Warcraft I in the Black Morass: The Opening of the Dark Portal, featuring the Guardian, Medivh. Note about Druid Crowd Control: In addition to hibernate working, you can also root the dragonkin as you are considered outside. A single druid can basically CC both melee dragonkins and leave the caster to her quick death at the hands of your DPS crew. Stealth Tactics If you have a Rogue in the party (and they know what they are doing), it is possible to bypass most of the encounters that occur before freeing Thrall. To do this, your rogue must stealth into the buildings and set the bombs! This will cause 2 things to occur: The patrols will despawn (a lifesaver in Heroic), and Lieutenant Drake will emerge. At this point your party has 2 options. You can clear the area at the bottom of the stairs and take Drake as normal, or, since you have already fulfilled the "mission" (which is just setting the bombs as a distraction) the party can now continue on to Thrall and never take on Drake at all!! However, the rest of the party might not get quest credit for this if they are too far away from the buildings. Heroic Mode Trash Attacks and Abilities * "Durnholde Lookout", the hunter-wolf patrols ** Pathing trails changed ** Now spawn two "Durnholde Rifleman" adds when aggro'ed. ** After killing a Lookout, it will respawn every 15 minutes until the bombs are detonated ** All mobs in the lookout groups except the "Durnholde Tracking Hound" are immune to crowd control (including polymorph, mind control, fear) * "Durnholde Warden" ** Melee: 600 damage ** Shadow Word: Pain: 800 damage per tick ** Heal: 15K (26K crit). When MC'ed, usable on a 15s cooldown ** New ability -- Dispel Magic: the AI will chain-cast this cleanse repeatedly (which will cleanse sheep on other mobs and wardens) ** Wardens can still be crowd controlled (sheep, mind control etc.) -- but because of the cleanse, all wardens must be crowd controlled at roughly the same time. * "Durnholde Rifleman" ** Melee: 500 damage ** Shoot: 1200 damage ** Scatter Shot: 90 damage ** New ability -- Multi-Shot: 700 damage * "Durnholde Sentry" ** Melee: 1500 damage ** Overpower: 1300 damage ** Hamstring: 400 damage ** New ability -- Cleave: 1400 damage Heroic Mode Walkthrough * The best parties from my perspective. ** Tank, Healer, Mage x 3 - Sheep 3 ** Tank, Healer, Mage x 2, Warlock - Sheep 2, Fear 1 ** Tank, Healer, Mage, Warlock x 2 - Sheep 1, Fear 2 ** Tank, Healer, Mage, Warlock, Druid - Sheep , Fear, Cyclone ** Tank, Healer, Mage, Warlock, Hunter - Sheep, Fear, Trap (note that certain mobs are immune to certain types of cc) Entering Durnholde You enter the instance and clear the smaller groups up till over the bridge. Thus far, everything should be fairly easy. While you stand on this side, walk along the sides of the large prison pit to spot the patrolling Lookouts and give them marks, so you know where they are at any given time. These patrols are extremely difficult: they have a very large aggro range, and upon aggro will summon two additional mobs, both of which run very fast and hit extremely hard, not to mention being immune to most types of CC. There are five of them in all that you need to worry about: two patrolling the walls around the prison pit, two inside the prison pit, and one patrolling the right side of the pit, with a route that will take it near the stairs into the pit (making the top of the stairs unsafe). At this point, you must determine whether your party will try to kill the groups in the buildings, or ninja them. In both cases, your major concern will be avoiding the patrols. The ninja strategy essentially requires one party member or group of party members pulling the mobs while another drops down and sets the firebombs. The person setting the bombs may want to simply remove their armor: if the mobs come back too soon, they will most likely die almost instantly. For the puller, a hunter using eyes of the beast with a beast that can dash and then feign death is ideal. Expect some deaths with this strategy: the bomber is likely to get trapped, and the puller to get ganked: as long as you leave your rezzing character outside the walls of the castle and away from combat, they can simply res members that have died in open spots. The killing method is more straightforward, but often quite brutal unless you have enough CC: remove the mobs from each building and set the bombs, working your way through the groups while avoiding the pats. Once you cleared all the buildings, you are free to run in and set fire to the houses. The best way to do this is leaving one building close to the wooden ramp to trigger as last, so you can set up for the boss fight. Once you set fire to all the buildings, the patrols will despawn. The first boss : Lieutenant Drake Drake hits extremely hard: he has a mortal strike that can do upwards of 7k on a tank, and a hamstring that can do up to 4k in addition to his regular attacks, whirlwind, and fear. If you've killed all the mobs, then position the party on TOP of the ramp, while you stand below the ramp tanking. Avoid his whirlwind and be ready to counter overaggro. When he fears the tank he will reset his aggro and move to a random person on top of the ramp. When Drake reaches the top of the ramp, the one being targeted jumps down before getting hit and the tank can then take over with Taunt and if that fails, Mocking Blow, or even Challenging Shout. If you haven't killed the mobs, simply pull Drake behind one of the burning buildings when he is away from them on his patrol back and forth. Saving Thrall Getting to Thrall is not as hard. The burning houses despawned the patrols, so the patrol that normally walks in the armory no longer walks there. After talking to Thrall, immediately run to the entrance of the Armory. Sheep, fear, trap the first group as soon as they spawn and tank the mob(s) that are left. Thrall will regularly hit a random sheep. If this is a bad target ( example : The Warden, which dispels sheep ), quickly get a different target and keep resheeping the one Thrall is hitting. After a couple resheeps, Thrall will hit the one that's not sheeped. Thrall can take quite a few hits, and will allegedly heal himself to 100% between fights. This is a mana-battle. Let Thrall run up front from now on, let your healer drink while other players CC the mobs. The one Thrall is hitting first is your main target, to avoid Thrall breaking sheeps. When you survive this short gauntlet, the second boss will come forward. Second Boss : Captain Skarloc This guy has 2 adds. He himself dispels magical effects ( including sheeps and perhaps even fears ), but if you dot him up fully and have mages burn him, he will be too busy dispelling himself and he will not dispel the adds. They can also be kited out of his range. He does not hit hard and his stuns are only dangerous in that they reduce the aggro generation of the main tank. Grabbing the beast by its throat Thrall next rides behind you on his 60% mount. Prepare for the next series of events. Once everyone is ready, trigger the event and run into the barn. Have the tank position at the hallway into the barn, where the mobs spawn. Sheep the Protector as fast as possible. This mob heals and dispels sheeps. We made this mistake and the only way we prevented an actual wipe was keeping Thrall to tank him, while the Mage kept sheeping the mob indefinitely and I used demo-shout and thunderclap. The rest ran in, got mana back, prepared and in the end rejoined us to continue the event. The next spawns are repeating this and are easy once you figure it out. When you are ready, the entire party runs to the entrance of the Church. A series of 2 groups with 3 mobs will spawn and the last group has 4 mobs ( a total of 3 groups after each other ). These mobs can not be sheeped, but they can be Feared or Hibernated and are affected by Hurricane, Frostnova and slowing/stunning abilities. In my case, we had 3 Mages and we discussed in advance how we would manage this fight. We had an order in which the Mages would Frostnova the Melee mobs to the ground, while quickly DPSing down the Casters. Thrall tanked one mob, the tank tanked one mob. Frostnova is there to prevent death from initial heal aggro and to give a clear view of what is happening. Be very careful on the last group, I used a Challenging Shout and got eaten by two Mortal strikes hitting me for 6.5K each. Frostnova can do miracles, but many more means of CC are available for these mobs. Final boss : the Epoch Hunter The last three waves of dragonkin hit much harder than before, but just as on normal, the real battle is making sure your party has enough mana and health to face the final boss after these waves. Tank the boss away from the group as normal. Miscellaneous notes The background music played in the instance when not specifically at the Keep or Tarren Mill is an adaptation of one of the orc music tracks from Warcraft II. It was also featured in the bonus orc campaign, "The Founding of Durotar", in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. This instance, being the replica of a level 20 zone, is quite explorable alone. The actual areas where you encounter the fights and bosses of this instance are few and far between, leaving a wide-open zone full of things to explore. In fact it is encouraged that you come here alone to see all the cameos and find the interesting tidbits that lore fanatics crave, because if you come with your group for a full run, they are not going to want to wait for you to explore so they can tackle content. However, you cannot wander too far away from the zones included in the instance (Tarren Mill, Southshore, and Durnholde Keep). You enter the instance from a cave that replaces the cave at Darrow Hill in the present-day Hillsbrad. Head south from there and you hit the road that goes east-west from Silverpine Forest to Arathi Highlands. Patrolling along this road is a pair of mages from Dalaran, a Dalaran Sorceress and an Aged Dalaran Wizard, the latter of the two sells an enchanting recipe found only in this instance, Enchant Shield-Intellect, in limited supply (1). However don't let the limited supply think you can't get more than one in each instance, as it has a 5 minute respawn timer on the vendor. Also patrolling along this road, and down into Southshore is Thomas Yance . He sells a very valuable Leatherworking recipe, Riding Crop, for 5g and this one is NOT in limited supply. Interestingly enough, he also sells all the level 1 gear you start with when you start a new character...for every class. He is also particularly useful as an armor repairer, should your group wipe at any time during your run. As Thomas enters the town he can be quoted saying, "Southshore is such a peaceful town... I'd like to live here one day," and he patrols down onto the Southshore dock and turns around and goes as far as the inn in Tarren Mill before turning around back towards Southshore. Within Tarren Mill, there are two children running around the town Jay Lemieux (Jason Lemieux is a mushroom vendor in the present day Tarren Mill) and Sarah Honeywell (who goes on to become a mage in present day Southshore.) Also in Tarren Mill, within the orchard, is the Tarren Mill Horsehand. He patrols around the area and has some interactions with residents and his horses. It starts in the barn. A still-human Kel'Thuzad is in this zone. He can be found just north of Southshore, on the road leading north. Patrolling with Kel'Thuzad along the road in and out of Southshore is Helcular, a necromancer made famous by the Horde quest Helcular's Revenge. In the Southshore inn, many well-known members of the Scarlet Crusade are standing around a table. If you wait a minute or so, they'll have a discussion about the war against the Scourge, which reveals some backstory about the Ashbringer, in what appears to be their first meeting. This is most bosses from Scarlet Monastery as younger versions of themselves, as well as the prominent members of the Scarlet Crusade who splintered off to become the Argent Dawn because they disagreed with the Crusade's fanaticism. Also in Southshore is Sally Whitemane, the future boss of Scarlet Monastery Cathedral, playing tag with Renault Mograine, the future other boss from Scarlet Monastery Cathedral. Jimmy Vishas can be seen following them, he later becomes Interrogator Vishas in the graveyard instance of Scarlet Monastery Cathedral. Herod the Bully can also be seen walking around Southshore, and he is much larger than the other children. On the dock of Southshore, Zixil can be seen building a robot, Overwatch Mark 0 . In the present day, this goblin (known as in the current Hillsbrad) can be found patrolling around Hillsbrad as a traveling vendor, accompanied by Overwatch Mark 1. Also on the dock is the one, the only, Nat Pagle! He is fishing with Hal McAllister in a zone which, surprisingly enough, has no fish. And inside the inn, there are two ship captains drinking at the bar, who go outside to have a private discussion. Captain Sanders discusses his plans with Captain Edward Hanes to hide his various possessions around the world, and leave a map that goes from clue to clue in order to get his prizes! This treasure hunt can be found in the present day from a world drop off of Murlocs in Westfall. The rewards from doing the quest are the items he talks about while in Old Hillsbrad. And Captain Edward Hanes is a quest giver for low level draenei in Bloodmyst Isles. Nathanos Marris can also be found in Old Hillsbrad, who in the events of the Third War will become "The Blightcaller," Lady Sylvanas' champion, and is a major Horde quest hub in the Eastern Plaguelands at Marris Stead. He even has the same gear on both past and present. Young Blanchy can be found in the Tarren Mill barn. Old Blanchy is a horse that can be found in modern day Westfall. Stalvan Mistmantle can be found sleeping in a bed in the Inn. Legend of Stalvan is an Alliance quest chain that starts in Darkshire. It is also of note that all other NPC's in the town use the "old" models from the very earliest stages of the game's development. These differ from the current models because their armor, clothing, etc is "built in" to the model, instead of the customizable models used by player characters. This is very obvious when you compare the Scarlet Crusade meeting in the Inn with the other characters around the outside of the building. A young Taelan Fordring is upstairs in the inn, holding a large, glowing hammer. Often if your party wipes while fighting Epoch Hunter or his minions, Thrall and Epoch Hunter will not reset to the earlier stage of Thrall talking to Taretha Foxton, this is a known bug and is being fixed. It also should be noted that most players upon entering the zone become humans in appearance. This allows Horde races to interact with Southshore and other places. Night Elves and Draenei, at the time of the escape not part of the Alliance, are also humans in appearance. Shadowform, Deviate Savory Delight, and other items that transform you will remove this effect. Videos * Thrall's Destiny (Highlights of the instance) * Full Run from WarCry.com Category:Instance:Old Hillsbrad Foothills